kalegrower

Big-horned sheep grazing by the side of the road on the drive to the Lodge. What happens in Jasper, stays in Jasper.

I hope that I am not betraying my Alberta roots (or compromising future visits to friends and relatives in Edmonton) by sharing Alberta’s best kept secret: Christmas in November. This weekend-long event held at the fabulous Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (JPL) was the Most! Fabulous! Weekend! Ever!  Which leaves me with three questions: (1) Why have I never heard of this event before? (2) Why doesn’t every destination hotel host an event like this one? and (3) How can I swing a trip there again next year?

After driving through the park (passing two herds of bighorn sheep enroute) we arrived at the fully and festively decorated JPL. Sunshine, sparking snow, stunning views of snowy peaks and an entire army of red-coated bellhops to open doors and to whisk us to our lakeside cabins and back in decorated minis. Every single meal was an event in itself. Gush, gush, gush. Fabulous food, unlimited drinks, catching up on two-years of meaning-of-life conversations (inspired perhaps by the unlimited drinks), laughter, dancing  and fun.

But the best part? The sessions. The weekend featured a series of presenters giving talks on holiday entertaining, cooking, decorating, crafts, chocolate. When it comes to Christmas I am normally on the grinchy side and am inclined to just say “NO!” to kitschy crafty Christmas crap, but Christmas in November turned things around for me. You might even say it was life changing.

Every session we attended was good, but hands down, my friend Lorin and I liked the “Behind the Scenes” tour of the Fairmont greenhouse the best. Sue Dunn and Marna Praill, former and current Head Gardeners at the Fairmont JPL  shared their decorating ideas, contrasting Sue’s earthy and practical “potting shed chic” with Marna’s elegant and bling-y style. By the end of the session both Lorin and I (neither of us are what you would describe as “crafty”) were buzzing with inspiration. Tree tassels, french wreathes, and kermit balls are all things I can’t wait to try, and I now know how to add “vertical interest” to Christmas urns.

On the way home yesterday we even stopped at Michaels to buy iridescent adhesive rhinestones to bejewel our Christmas wreaths and wine glasses (thanks to “Saint Nic” Manojlovich for that idea). I’ve already bought branches of red berries inside, planted my paper whites and made a festive recipe from my new recipe book.  CHRISTMAS HAS ARRIVED!!!

One day last week when I walked into my back garden, I noticed that something was very different. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but the whole area felt more open and lighter. It took me a few minutes to realize that the neighbors behind us had lowered the hedge separating our properties. Although it wasn’t a huge change – the hedge is now about seven feet tall instead of nine and a half – the increased sky and light make the area feel more spacious.

I’m feeling more light and space in my life as well. Yesterday was my last day of my half-time “office job” at the Cancer Agency and although I am going to miss some of the people I’ve worked with, I am glad it is over. Suddenly my life seems so much brighter and I have more space for everything else that needs attention: my family, my consulting practice, my neglected friends and my garden.

Over the next few weeks I am hoping to get everything back on track again, including the garden. The chard, arugula, radishes and kale are all still thriving in the cooler weather, so we are going to be eating those crops back under control. I have garlic to plant as well as some spring bulbs, lots of weeding and all the usual fall clean-up activities like bringing in the deck furniture and the hoses, and shutting off the water. We’ve had the branches of one of our “problem trees” trimmed so that we don’t have to worry about it collapsing if it snows, and I need to prune the apple tree and take care of some of the other hedges.

This is also the time to reflect on what worked this year and to plan for next summer. That will be the next blog……Right now I want to get outside and enjoy the fall sun.

I guess that posting about my garden being my “Happy Place” tempted fate. Between the time that I posted this morning and now, my winter garden has been crushed. By a large piece of plywood falling on top of the garden. The softer plants, like arugula and lettuce are just bent over and might be okay, but the leaves of the kale and cilantro, which have more rigid stems, all snapped off. There is nothing to do but go out and try to salvage the parts of the plants that were left. I guess that I will be eating a whole lot of salads this week.

I am so disappointed – the garden was doing so well.

I love my garden and have many trees, plants and places that could be classified as favorites. The place I like best is in the middle of the raspberries in the early fall. The light is dappled and hits the leaves in a certain way, there are a few berries ripening, and there are no mosquitoes.  The picture above and below are it….Happy images to last all through fall and winter…

Two garden boxes in the foreground. The former climbing wall in the background is being used to block out the view of my neighbor’s “project”.

For some reason I keep thinking that gardening season is over and so have been neglecting my garden. Luckily the warm fall soil and all the rains have taken care of things, and the veggies have been growing like crazy. Every time I walk to the back of the yard I am surprised by how many things are waiting to be picked. I return to the house with handfuls of beans, radishes, zucchini, cucumbers, cilantro, kale and lettuce.

This was a particularly good year for cucumbers from a taste perspective, although they were not much to look at. I planted both pickling cucumbers and “sweet slice” cucumbers, although I think only the pickling ones grew. I think I was supposed to pick them when they were small and fresh, but instead left them too long and ended up with dozens of orange balls: fruits that were about three inches long, perfectly round, with a tough yellowy-orange skin. They looked like squash, but when the skin was peeled off and sliced, the flesh was firm and cool and definitely tasted like cucumber.

We finally picked the honeycrisp apples off our new tree on the weekend. Although the tree is only still a sapling, it produced several large crisp apples. Neither the new pear nor the new plum produced anything this year.

The fall kale (planted in august) is also doing well and we’ve been eating it lightly steamed or sauted while the old kale just continues to grow. As one of my friends said last weekend “Kale just gets bitter as it ages…like me!”. Yeah, that made me laugh. We will end up eating the aged and bitter kale in the winter, when there are fewer fresh vegetables around. Believe it or not, there are several dutch recipes featuring kale which I will try.

Finally, yesterday I harvested one of the remaining two savoy cabbages and cooked it into a okonomiyaki. Although the idea of a cabbage and seafood pancake may not appeal, I can assure you that it is very tasty and was gobbled up by my people. The cabbage tasted fine, but was a little tough – not just the outer leaves, but the inner ones as well, so I might have to come up with another use for the remaining cabbage.

That’s it for now. I have been typing this out on my deck, covered with a blanket but now my feet and fingers are starting to get chilled…

I’ve been in a fall state of mind for exactly one month now, enjoying the slightly cooler weather and the subtle seasonal changes. This has probably been the sunniest month on record, with only one day of rain in the last three weeks. Because it hasn’t been scorching, it’s been easy to ignore how dry everything is becoming.

Although our back lawn is pretty much reduced to crispy straw, I’ve been watering the  major trees every few days. The raspberries are now in their fall fruiting period and need lots of water, as do all the veggies. Other plants that are often ignored are hedges, so I have been paying special attention to the boxwoods, cedars and rhododendrons. I haven’t done much other work in the garden lately except cut back some of the plants that have been dying off including the spring vetch. Once that was out of the way, the cyclamen started to bloom, which is one of my favorite fall blooms.

Fall cyclamen under the larch tree

Borage

Most of the wildflowers have died off , but the borage is growing strong and taking up huge amounts of empty space. I will definitely plant that again next year.

The other thing I did last weekend was to transplant all of my neglected houseplants into larger pots and cut back all the dead foliage. As long as I remember to water them, they should be good for another year. I threw out all the dead orchids as the leaves were all dried out and crispy. This year I am not going to be nurturing any high maintenance plants indoors during the winter, which simplifies things significantly.

The big activity planned for this week is planning. I have someone coming this week to give me a quote for tree/branch removal. The firs and rhodos on either side have grown to touch the house, so it is time to cut them back as well.

Summer is definitely nearing an end. There are promises of rain for this long weekend and I am happy about that as everything is so dry.  Luckily, temperatures are still very warm so most of the seeds in the winter garden germinated and are growing rapidly.

Everything in the first box – on the bottom of the photo above and described in the previous blog post – sprouted in about four days and is growing well. The second box was planted on August 21st (just over a week ago) and the radishes and beets have all sprouted and the carrots are starting to come up. The second box contains (from left to right):

• one row of Easter egg blend radishes
• three rows of French breakfast radishes
• two rows of little fingers carrots
• one row of red ace beets
• three rows of beet blend beets.

Everything was overseeded because most of the seeds were older (most from 2011) and I wasn’t sure how well they would germinate. I had assumed that the radish and beet seeds were no longer active since they were planted in the spring without any success. I’ve been cutting the kale and radish spouts and have been serving them as “microgreens” on salads and as garnish. They are surprisingly spicy.

This week most of the apples ripened. I don’t know what type of apples they are, but are not a commercial variety as they soften only a few days after being picked. Most of the apples are blemished and/or have worms, but we just cut those parts away and eat the rest. We’ve been eating tons of them, making apple crisps and freezing lots for apple butter (peeled, cored and chopped up in a big ziplock with lemon juice).  The Man grew up in this house and the tree was here when they moved in; these particular apples are the flavour of his childhood.

This week in the garden.

• Art and Bryn are coming to pick up the hive. It has been a great summer for the bees and they are thriving.
• This week I cut back all the old raspberry canes and tied up the new ones. Although this is relatively early, it allowed me to easily tell the difference between the old canes (brown) and the new canes (still green). Last fall I ended up cutting many of the new canes by accident. The fall crop of raspberries looks great and I have been watering lots to help them along. Hopefully they will ripen and not rot.
• I am starting to repot a few things for friends. If you are located in Vancouver and want some shasta daisies (hate!), yellow lilies (love!) or wild strawberries (I have hundreds!) for your garden, please let me know (cpalaty@gmail.com) and I will dig up a starter plant for you. I will let you know when it is ready and you can pick it up at the end of our driveway (no deliveries…my car was just detailed).

One more note: big thanks to my awesome cat-loving neighbours for the sexy hose! I don’t mean the kind you wear, but the kind you use to water. Earlier in the summer I was watering their planters and fell in love with their hose – it is one of those super-light collapse-able hoses that you see on the infommercials. Anyway, they gave me one as a gift and I LOVE it. Thanks R&A!

Potato harvest 2014

Fall 2014 arrived this afternoon, August 15, at 2:17  pm, at least for me. I was standing in a home organization store with my friend Julia after our lunch date and just as I reached to pick up some kitchen thingy, I was struck by the sudden awareness of fall. I don’t know what it was that triggered the feeling. Perhaps a change in the quality of the light? A different smell? A subtle change in temperature? Whatever it was, I felt the arrival.

This evening I plated the over-winter garden. I dug in my last few 40 pound bags of mushroom manure into the box and planted the following rows (from east to west):

• Kale: Vates blue curled scots
• Spinach: space
• Lettuce: freckles
• Arugula: roquette
• Kale: red russian
• Lettuce: coastal star
• Arugula: wild arugu;a
• Cilantro: coriandrum sativum
• Lettuce: speckled butterhead
• Mesculuns

This evening The Man told my son that fall had arrived. He felt it too. His prediction is that it is going to be a cold, wet September. We will see if that happens.

Salad nicoise with lettuce, potatos and beans from our garden.